India built the world’s largest biometric identity system. It created a payments network that countries now study and copy. It turned itself into a global byword for digital public infrastructure.
And yet, ask anyone who has tried to file taxes online, book a train ticket, or apply for a visa. You’ll hear the same complaint: the website barely works.
This contradiction is now getting international attention. The Economist’s new India column, Ashoka, written by Leo Mirani, recently described many Indian government websites as “hostile” to the people who use them.
The magazine’s language was unusually blunt. It called many portals a “sadistic mix of pop-ups, moving text, flashing graphics” a combination that turns routine tasks into ordeals. Broken links, outdated CAPTCHAs, and endless redirects, the piece argued, are not occasional glitches. They are the norm.
None of this is new, even if the criticism feels fresh. Researchers, disability rights advocates, and the government’s own auditors have flagged the same problems for years.
As far back as 2016, an audit of central government websites found that only 31 of 957 portals actually complied with the government’s own design guidelines. The Centre for Internet and Society has repeatedly pointed out that most government sites still fail to meet basic international accessibility standards, leaving out users with disabilities entirely.
Academic reviews of e-governance portals keep turning up the same issues: poor navigation, weak accessibility, and interfaces that seem designed for anyone but the citizen trying to use them.
So why does a country capable of building Aadhaar and UPI keep failing at something as basic as a functional website?
Part of the answer lies in how these systems were conceived in the first place. According to the Economist piece, India’s digital bureaucracy has largely tried to reproduce paper processes in digital form, rather than rethinking how citizens actually interact with government services.
User experience only made its way into official website guidelines in 2023 more than a decade after the first government portals went live.
The way these systems get built doesn’t help either. Many ministries rely on the National Informatics Centre, the government’s in-house tech body, to build and run their websites. But once a project grows complex, it usually gets outsourced to private vendors.
That brings in technical skill, but it also creates a gap. Susan Thomas of the Mumbai-based think tank XKDR, quoted in the piece, argues that governments frequently outsource both the strategy and the execution leaving officials with no real understanding of the systems they’ve paid for. Her description of the result: “a costly, unmanageable liability.”
Procurement adds another layer of friction. Risk-averse government departments tend to pick the lowest bidder, or lean on large consulting firms mainly for cover. Following the correct process is safer than betting on a better design.
The incentive, in other words, is to avoid blame, not to build something that actually works well for the person on the other end.
What makes this frustrating is that India has already proven it can do better. Aadhaar is widely regarded as the country’s most successful digital public project, and its success wasn’t just technological. It was about leadership.
Nandan Nilekani was given cabinet-rank authority to build it, which let him hire specialised talent, move fast, and take risks that most government departments never get to take. That model has rarely been repeated elsewhere in India’s digital bureaucracy.
This isn’t a minor design complaint anymore. As welfare payments, tax filing, education access, and healthcare services move online, a badly built website stops being an inconvenience and starts becoming a barrier.
A failed payment. A missed deadline. A blocked application that never goes through. For someone without the time, patience, or digital literacy to navigate a maze of broken links, the cost isn’t frustration, it’s exclusion from a service they’re entitled to.
India has shown, repeatedly, that it can build digital infrastructure at a scale few countries can match. The harder task now is building digital services that are designed with the same care as the technology underneath them.
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